


Cry For Help

by trampledamage



Category: Deus Ex (Video Games), Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Genre: Gen, Montreal, Picus - Freeform, Prague
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-10-28 15:56:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10834518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trampledamage/pseuds/trampledamage
Summary: Would you believe me if I told you Jensen's enjoying a pleasant walk on his day off?





	1. A Sunny Day in Prague

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Deus Ex fan-fiction, and having read other stories here I know I have a high bar to reach. Feedback is always welcome. Hope you enjoy it.
> 
> It's set after the end of Mankind Divided, so there are spoilers for both games and the DLC (except A Criminal Past because I haven't played that yet).

“Help me, Adam.”

Jensen woke abruptly with a voice echoing in his head. He sat up and looked around, disoriented in the darkness. He was in his own bed, in his apartment in Prague; but that wasn't where he'd expected to be.

He shook his head to wake himself up properly. He could hear faint sounds coming from the living room so he got up and silently padded across his room, ready to attack anyone foolish enough to have chosen his apartment for a break-in. There was no-one in the main room, but light was flickering from the big screen on the wall. Jensen sighed; he must have left it on before he went to bed last night. He bent down to the table to grab the remote and switched off the screen.

Yawning, he walked back to his bed. That explained why the voice in his dream sounded like Eliza Cassan – the ever-present host of Picus news.

The next morning Jensen had the day off from TF29. He got up at his usual time and walked out into the Prague streets. It had been raining overnight and the streets were clean and sparkling. Jensen looked up at the sky, which was shining blue; not a cloud to be seen. It was almost enough to make a person feel optimistic about the future, Jensen thought to himself. Then he reached the subway station and an armoured guard gruffly asked him for his papers. "And then you’re brought back to reality," Jensen muttered.

“What’s that?” the guard said sharply, “Are you arguing with me, clank?”

Jensen didn't bother answering, just got out his identity papers and handed them over.

The guard read them carefully, as if expecting them to be fake before handing them back and stepping aside to let Jensen enter the subway. Jensen shrugged it off as the cost of living. It was much worse in other places even though the human restoration act had failed to pass. Augmented people might not have to choose between a ghetto or a control chip, but that didn't mean they were any more welcome.

Jensen trotted down the steps into the station and waited for the next train to come in for Poutnikova Station. On his days off he liked to check out the city to see what was going on. Today he was going to Dávný District because he had information to hand over to someone there, and besides he was running low on groceries and there was a little store in the district that stocked his favourite brand of cereal. The owner, Marta Kozina, was an augmented woman who was trying to make a go of a normal life. Vaclav Kollar had taken him there once and Jensen liked to go back whenever he could.

As he rode the train, Jensen wondered about Rabi'ah – from what Pritchard had said, David Sarif was getting involved. Would that be good or bad, Jensen wondered. Could an Aug sanctuary city actually help or would it end up like Golem City, and be more of a prison? 

As he stepped off the train, Jensen reflexively looked up at the massive screens in the station displaying the Picus rolling news channel. Duncan MacReady at TF29 called it the Picus twitch: everyone took a quick glance up at the screens when they got off the train, just to make sure the city wasn't burning. 

Nothing was burning this morning Jensen was pleased to see. Eliza Cassan was doing some piece about Montreal, maybe Picus HQ was expanding or something. Jensen didn't pay it much heed.

He walked out of the subway station into Dávný District, the guards here were bored and didn't even talk to him, just took the papers, looked, and gave them back. Jensen turned left and walked down the main street, later turning left again into a courtyard surrounded by apartments. Last week when he'd been here he'd offered to help a man, Nasim Bouali, find information on the location of his daughter Samirah. Jensen had that information now – it was amazing what you could connect to through the task force computers so long as no-one was paying attention – and he wanted to let Nasim know.

Jumping up, Jensen hoisted himself up on to the first balcony, and then repeated the process to the second – he could have walked to the stairs but they usually stank and were full of rubbish, this way was easier – Bouali's apartment was four along to the right, Jensen walked over and knocked on the door.

After a minute, Jensen heard footsteps and Bouali opened the door.

“Mr. Jensen! I did not expect to see you so soon!” Bouali said.

“I found information on Samirah,” Jensen replied, he handed over a data chip. “It's all on there, she's safe, she's in Paris.”

“Ah, praise God, that is good news Mr. Jensen, I can't thank you enough.”

Jensen nodded, “You're welcome,” he could hear the sound of the television in the background. Eliza Cassan was still talking about the delights of Montreal. “I'll let you get back to what you were doing.”

“Oh it's just the weekly sports results, I'm waiting for them to finish with the baseball so I can see some soccer. It should be coming up soon. Thanks again Mr. Jensen.”

Jensen turned and walked away back down the balcony towards the stairs. There were too many people around for Jensen to want to attract attention by jumping off the balcony, so he braved the stairs. 

Once back out on the street, Jensen decided to head over to Marta's store to pick up his groceries and see how she was getting on. From Bouali's apartment building it was a short walk and the sun was still shining, Jensen was feeling good about the day.

Looking through the window of the store he saw Marta leaning on the counter watching the TV. He pushed open the door and went in.

“What the hell?” Marta shouted, in a surprised tone. She hadn't looked round, so Jensen didn't think she was reacting to him.

“What is it?” he asked.

Marta looked around, “Oh hi Adam, sorry – just shouting at the TV. It was in the middle of a program about the legal fight to get better stocks of Neuropozyne and then suddenly they switch to this puff piece about Montreal. Who the hell in Prague cares about the weather in Montreal?”

Jensen stopped, “Montreal?” he repeated.

“Yeah, look!” Marta tilted the screen slightly – it was the same show on Montreal that he had seen in Bouali’s apartment and in the station.

Jensen swallowed, “Probably just a glitch in the feed. I expect it'll be back to normal soon.”

He walked round the shelves, picking out what he needed. “How are you?” he called out.

“Not doing too badly, actually,” Marta replied in a happier tone. “I got accepted at P. Tech to learn to be a cyberneticist. I want to get a diploma so if we do all end up being herded into Rabi’ah, at least I'll have saleable skills.”

“Good choice. Augments aren't going away, no matter what the politicians want.”

Marta nodded, “That's what I figure too. Classes start next month.”

Jensen brought his groceries up to the counter and paid for them. “Good luck with the school work,” he said as he left.

“Thanks Adam, see you soon!”

Jensen went straight back to his own apartment and switched on the news. Another show about Montreal. This wasn't a coincidence.

“Okay Eliza,” he said out loud, “I've got your message.”

The TV screen buzzed with static and then came back with the Neuropozyne program Marta had been watching.

Jensen grunted and rubbed his face with his hands, Eliza Cassan needed him to go to Montreal so badly she was taking over the TV feeds in Prague. So what was he going to do about it?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jensen reaches out to an old friend for help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I'm not breaking any site etiquette by adding the character tags as I go.

Jensen sat back on the sofa and closed his eyes. How was he supposed to get to Montreal? This wouldn’t be like the last time he visited Picus HQ, when he had David Sarif’s resources to call on.

He couldn’t get a commercial flight – he’d be red-flagged at every border with his augments.

Who could he trust with a request like this? He sighed. Truth was, there were very few people he trusted. There was no way he was bringing the Juggernaut Collective into this; they had too many unknown schemes. Giving them access to Eliza Cassan was out of the question.

At TF29, Jensen felt he could trust his boss Jim Miller (whatever doubts Janus still held) but to tell Miller would open this up to official scrutiny and that was also a very bad idea. He didn’t trust anyone else at the task force enough to ask them to help him on the quiet.

So that left, who?

Jensen got up and paced his living room, pouring himself a glass of whiskey and setting the tumbler down on the table in front of the sofa before accepting the inevitable. This journey to Picus wasn’t going to be so very different to the first one. The only person who could possibly get him to Montreal that he could trust was Sarif’s pilot, Faridah Malik.

He keyed in a call request on his PerSec. He hadn’t contacted her since his return from Alaska, so he wanted to give her the choice on whether to respond. He knew he should have talked to her before, knew she would have been genuinely pleased to hear from him, but something held him back. He could hear Pritchard’s acerbic voice in his head, “I’ll let you get back to you moody loner thing.”

He hated it when Pritchard was right.

The call chime dinged and the screen on his PerSec came to life.

“Jensen? Adam Jensen?” came Malik’s familiar warm voice, sounding incredulous. The camera link resolved a second after voice connection, and there was Faridah just as she was last time her saw her.

“Hello Malik,” Jensen wasn’t sure what else to say.

“Jesus, Jensen! I had to hear you were still alive from Frank of all people!” Malik said exasperated. “When Frank Pritchard’s handling personal communication better than you are, you’ve failed in some major ways!”

Jenson laughed, “Yes I know… I am sorry. Things have been… weird.”

Malik smiled, “Don’t I know it! Once Frank passed me the word, I started keeping an eye out for you on the newsfeeds. Seems wherever there’s trouble, there’s Adam.” Malik looked at him closely, “Anyway, something big must have brought you out of the dark. What can I do for you?”

“It’s… weird.”

Malik just laughed.

“Is there any chance you can get me from Prague to Montreal without anyone paying too much attention?”

Malik gave the matter some thought. “Actually, yes. I’m living in Britain now, working with a company overhauling old military jets with new tech. There’s a C130 that we recently fitted VTOL jets to. It needs a long haul flight test, Montreal would work perfectly.”

“Britain? How did you manage that?” Britain had been a closed door to immigration for years, even before Darrow’s insanity unleashed hell.

“It’s all about blood lines for the Brits, and I have a grandfather who was a citizen here and served in the Army. Lineage and service, it was enough to get me in.”

“Good going! So you think you can get to use this plane?”

Malik nodded, “Certain. When do you need to go?”

Jensen considered the situation, “As soon as possible really, but I need to talk to my boss Jim Miller first. Could you get to Prague by tomorrow evening?”

Malik grinned, “See you then! I’ll call you when I’m en route.”

Malik clicked off the screen and Jensen sat back with a smile – knowing Faridah was part of the team made him feel better.

 

*           *           *

 

Next morning, Miller was alone in his office, frowning over a set of reports, when Jensen found him. Jensen knocked on the door frame.

“Got a minute, boss?”

Miller looked up, “Just so long as it is only a minute. I have to report to Manderley in an hour and I haven’t got all this data organised yet.”

Jensen kept his voice relaxed, “I want to request some immediate personal time. There’s something I need to look into back in Detroit”

Miller studied Jensen in silence for a moment, and Jensen could tell he was running possibilities of what could take Jensen back to Detroit, and if it would be anything of interest to the taskforce.

Miller nodded, “Fine. Let MacReady know I’ve okayed it and tell him how long you need. And Jensen?” Jensen turned back, “if you come across anything interesting – remember to share.”

Jensen nodded. He understood Miller’s implicit instruction; anything interesting meant anything to do with Juggernaut.

After clearing things with MacReady, Jensen left the taskforce office. He needed some quiet time to think. Was he going crazy – thinking he was receiving messages from the TV? And if it was real, what was he going to face in Montreal?

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jensen heads to Montreal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My heartfelt apologies to anyone who reads this who knows aeroplanes and engineering. I have no idea whatsoever whether you can do what I've done to a C130, or what one actually looks like on the inside. I just like the Hercules and wanted to include it as Malik's plane.

Jensen sat in darkness in his apartment looking out at the night sky, drinking a mug of coffee. He had slept for a while, but knew Malik would be arriving in the early hours of the morning so he’d risen at three and relaxed until he heard from her.

“Jensen?” Malik’s voice crackled over his infolink.

“I’m here.”

“I’m about an hour out from Prague. I figured you wouldn’t want me at the airport and I don’t want to risk this old tub’s new engines in the middle of the city so I’m aiming for… Přírodní park Draháň-Troja. There’s some open fields there I can use.”

Malik’s pronunciation wasn’t too good, but Jensen got enough to know she meant the nature park to the north of the city.

“I’ll be there.”

Malik closed the infolink connection.

Jensen considered his best option for getting to the park. He decided on taking the subway to Kobylisy then he should be close enough to the park to easily make the rest of the way on foot. Easier than trying for a cab in Prague.

He grabbed his travel bag, set the security on his apartment and left.

The journey on the subway was uneventful and Jensen made good time around the suburbs leading to the park. He waited at the edge of the trees until he heard the deep bass thrum of jet engines and felt them shake the earth.

“Jensen, are you on site?” Malik asked.

“I'm here, I see you.”

“Good, I don’t want to stop for too long. As soon as the back ramp is open, come aboard.”

“Will do.”

The huge shadowy form of the C130 loomed into view, its silhouette made even larger by the massive VTOL engines that had been built into the wings, replacing the original engines. Jensen watched it get bigger as it came closer to the ground. He saw the back loading ramp start to lower before Malik had landed, Jensen ran over the grass making a route to approach directly from the back, to avoid the backwash of the engines. He jumped up to the ramp and grabbed it with both hands. He pulled himself up and into the body of the plane.

“I’m on, Malik!”

“Smooth, okay hang on to something attached to be plane! I’m going to reverse thrusters and get us into clean air again.”

Jensen grabbed hold of one of the webbing straps hanging down the side of the cargo hold and braced himself as the ramp closed and the engines pushed the plane back up into the air.

Once the plane was high enough, he heard the engines move into their forward position, the plane stopped feeling like it was going to shake itself apart.

“Okay Jensen you can come up front” Malik called through the infolink, “We’re flying normally again.”

Jensen went hand over hand with the webbing straps up to the front and opened the door dividing the hold from the pilots’ area. He stepped through and looked around.

“You've a bit more space here than on Sarif's plane,” he commented.

Malik laughed, “You've got that right. These birds were made for a full military crew to fly, and even now it’ll be a two pilot crew for the long-distance runs so I get to have company and a few luxuries. Sit down and grab a coffee,” she said pointing to a dispenser to Jensen’s left.

Jensen strapped himself into the second pilot seat and poured a coffee, he leant back in his chair, closed his eyes and sighed.

“How you doing, SpyBoy?” Malik asked with a smile.

“I need to find an easier way of life. I keep trying to fix things and the world’s still going to hell.” Jensen muttered.

“I hear you. As soon as it looks like society’s calming down a new emergency pops up.”

Jensen clicked back his eye shields and looked across at Malik. “Thanks for doing this. And I am sorry for not contacting you sooner. I should have done, I know.”

Malik rested her hand on his arm, “Don’t worry about it,” she paused, “so, you going to tell me why we’re going to Montreal?”

Jensen chuckled, “Oh man, this sounds crazier every time I think about it, but here it is.” And he explained what had happened to him two days ago. Malik listened with increasing amazement.

She stared at him in silence for a moment. “Are you serious? We’re flying to Montreal so you can break into Picus because you think Eliza Cassan is sending you messages through the TV?”

Jensen winced, “I did say it was weird.”

“You are opening my world to whole hew levels of weird,” Malik replied with a grin.

Jensen breathed out slowly, “I don’t think I’m going crazy, Malik. This did happen. Eliza Cassan isn't a person, she’s an AI and she’s contacted me directly before… in Panchaea, she… helped me.”

Malik nodded, making her decision. “Fair enough. You ask, I deliver – just don’t ask me to help with getting through Picus security!”

“Don’t worry, you’re my escape route. I don’t want you anywhere near trouble.”

“I can cope with that.”

They flew on across the Atlantic in silence for a while before Malik, glancing across at Jensen, started a conversation she’d been wanting to have since finding out from Frank Pritchard that Jensen had survived the Panchaea disaster.

“Adam,” she said.

Jensen looked over, eyebrow raised at the unexpected use of his first name.

“Tell me to butt out and mind my own business if you want,” Malik continued, “but you need to rejoin the land of the living.”

When Jensen didn't say anything she continued again, “You didn't use to be closed off like this. I mean, I know a lot went wrong at Panchaea, and with Megan and Sarif but you can’t live the rest of your life waiting for everything to go wrong again.”

 Jensen signed, “You are right,” he said slowly. “Pritchard said something similar, except his way was insulting and annoying. I like your way better. It’s just… difficult.”

 Malik nodded, “I understand. The way the world is, it’s difficult even for me, settling into working for British Aerosystems. But you don’t have to start with making new friends,” she said brightly, “You have old ones. There’s me, and I’m quite close by. If I’m over in the US for deliveries or conferences, I quite often meet up with Frank and there are others of the Sarif crew dotted around who I’m still in contact with. What do you say? Can I invite you out for pizza now and then?”

 Jensen smiled, “If you’re offering pizza, how can I refuse?”

 “Good! I will hold you to this.”

 Jensen looked over at her, “Thank you,” he said simply.

 “FlyGirl’s got your back, SpyBoy,” Malik said with a grin.

 The rest of the flight passed quietly and Jensen tried to sleep to stop his mind running in circles, wondering what he’d find at Picus. Sooner than he expected, Malik tilted the plane’s nose down.

 “We’re coming over the coast of Newfoundland now, not long til Montreal.”

 Jensen looked out at the darkness, looking down he could see lights marking the cities.

 “What time is it locally?” he asked.

 Malik clicked a switch on her dash, “Just past midnight.”

 “Good, that gives me several hours of darkness to get in and find out what’s going on. Do you have enough fuel to stay airborne or will you need to land? I don’t want you getting caught in anything.”

 Malik ran the calculations in her head. “If you’re back with me by dawn, I’ll be good to take us all the way home again. Any longer than that and I’ll need to stop but it doesn't have to be here. The plane’s comms signal will keep the infolinks connected to a distance of 100 klicks so I can do wide loops in the sky – stay out of everyone’s way. You need me, I can be back quickly, just get to the roof – I won’t even need to land.”

 “Sounds good. I’ve no idea what I’m getting into, so I’ll try and play it quietly, but I doubt it’ll stay that way.”

 “What if it’s some sort of trap?”

 Jensen flashed a wolfish grin, “Then I fight my way out.”

 A chime sounded from Malik’s dash. “Okay, we’re coming up on the waypoint marker. I’ll drop you off via the ramp.”

 Jensen unstrapped his belt and stood up to go back to the cargo area. Malik grabbed his hand and gave it a quick squeeze.

 “Good luck!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's going to be a delay before the next chapter, because this is literally all I have written so far:
> 
> "Jensen making his way through Picus"
> 
> I've written the chapters after this one, but I forgot to go back : )


	4. Getting the band back together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, the chapter title is completely facetious, it's in honour of our boy Frank arriving in the story at last - I hope I've done all right by him.

Jumping down off the ramp, Jensen activated his Icarus landing system and landed gently on the roof of the Picus tower.

He activated the infolink, “I’m down, get out of here, Malik.”

“Roger that.”

The big plane arced in a wide circle and flew off to the east.

Jensen stood up, took a slow steadying breath and rolled his shoulders, he needed to get started. The building was quiet as Jensen entered. He knew better than to expect Picus to be the hive of activity of any other global news station. Eliza herself did all the news gathering and reporting. Picus was more of a specialised computer firm than a news company.

Still, he had to be careful, Jensen also knew that Picus took its security very seriously and they had to be expecting something to happen after Eliza interrupted the channel to attract his attention.

As he walked down the quiet corridor he heard the unmistakable whine of a robot sentry powering up and tracking targets. He needed to get off this corridor and fast.

Quickly scanning the room to his right, he saw it was an empty office. He opened the door slightly and slid through, closing it again quickly. He went to the desk computer and bypassed the security firewalls to see the contents of the drive. Scanning the user’s e-mail account, he saw one from last week indicating a security upgrade. After business hours robot sentries would patrol the corridors picking up anyone without Picus ID tags, the third basement would have additional turrets that would target anyone who wasn’t on the clearance list – regardless of employee status.

Jensen stood up; the third basement would be where he would find Eliza. He didn’t have time to search for an employee ID and didn’t want to attract any attention. He didn’t want anyone other than Eliza to know he’d ever been here – whatever it was she needed, it was apparently a secret from Picus.

Jensen glanced around the room; there was an air vent down at floor level. That should lead through to the elevator shafts, which would give him access to the basement. Opening the vent, Jensen started to crawl.

The air duct took him quickly to the elevator shaft and he climbed down the cable. The elevator car was sitting on the ground level, but looking below it Jensen realised this shaft did not go down to the basement. Picus must have a separate secure access to the basement levels. He needed to find that elevator.

He didn’t have time to search around the ducts for it – he needed to find a map. His best chance was out in the main lobby either a map on display or on a computer at the reception desk. He levered open the rescue hatch in the top of the elevator car and jumped down inside. Extending his nanoblade, he slid it between the doors of the elevator until their automatic safety sensors recognised an object in the doorway and opened them.

Jensen scouted the area from within the elevator. There was no map on display so he’d need to go to the reception desk on the right of the room and access the computer. On the ceiling were two turrets and slumbering over on the far left was a robot sentry.

Activating his cloak, Jensen sprinted across the room and dived behind the desk. He rested there for a minute to make sure there was no reaction from either the turrets or the sentry. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out a multi-tool which would automate hacking to get access to the computer. Keeping his body below the desk, he reached up with one hand and held the tool within range of the computer. He listened to it work and when it signalled completion he packed it away.

Reactivating the cloak, Jensen crouched in front of the computer. Keeping a close eye on his battery display in the HUD, Jensen searched through the computer to find a map of Picus tower. He found it and it showed that the elevator to the basement was the one positioned directly across the room from where he was.

Jensen crouched down behind the desk, deactivating his cloak and letting the battery recharge. He worked out the math on the distance involved. The battery for the cloak wouldn’t last long enough for him to get across the room and open the elevator doors.

He could shoot out the turrets or remotely hack them but either one of these actions could attract attention and he didn’t want anyone to notice anything amiss. He needed a different route to the basement. There had to be stairs somewhere in case of fire or power outages. He waited for his battery to completely recharge, reactivated the cloak and swung around to the computer again. Bringing the map back up on screen, he saw that there was a stairwell going down situated in a corridor behind him off to the left.

The distance was still too long to make it cloaked, but Jensen thought that one turret going offline wouldn't raise any suspicions and if he went fast enough his cloak would last long enough that he would be out of range of the furthest turret.

He was out of options; he had to give it a try. Waiting for his cloak to recharge, he knelt as low as he could behind the desk and still have sight of the near turret. He raised his right hand slowly and he concentrated on sensing the signal wavelengths emanating from the turret. Isolating the command line from central security, Jensen listened for the rhythm of the pulses and clicked each one off remotely with the hacking unit in his hand. The turret powered down. Now he had to run before it reset. Activating his cloak, he darted out from the desk and followed the wall to his left, coming to a halt pressed against the door to the stairwell.

Now to make it down the stairs. He scanned the stairwell through the door – it was as he thought; the security upgrades included turrets in this stairwell. He couldn’t deactivate each one; that would definitely show up as a suspicious pattern. Stairwell turrets did have one weakness; they had a blind spot directly behind them. Jensen sighed in frustration, this was going to be annoying. He would need to activate his cloak, run to the blind spot, wait for the battery to recharge and then do it again from turret to turret down to the third basement level.

When he made it down to the third basement level, he scanned the corridor. There were turrets placed the length of the corridor and they were all actively scanning for disturbances. Jensen decided he was close enough to his goal that he’d have to risk the deactivations being noticed, because he couldn’t run past all of those under cloak.

Jensen remotely hacked each turret as he went along, keeping up a rapid enough pace that he was beyond the range of a turret before it came back online. When he reached the entrance of the server room he looked in quickly, careful not to expose more of his body than he had to in case this was a trap after all.

No gunfire, but no Eliza either.

“Adam” came a whisper.

Jensen stood completely still, not breathing,  trying to pinpoint the location of the sound. Off to his left, there was a definite disturbance in the air. Looking back in that direction Jensen saw a door. He activated his cloak, crossed the corridor and tested the door. It wasn’t locked so he pushed it open carefully, keeping his body behind the wall. No gunfire. Jensen stepped into the room.

It was a small room with no furniture, a store room perhaps. Jensen scanned it with all the facilities he had, but the room registered as empty. He deactivated the cloak and held his breath to see if he could sense the feeling of ‘something’ that he had felt out in the corridor.

It was definitely here. He walked further into the room. In the far corner, in a part that had previously been in shadow, he found her.

“Eliza,” he breathed.

This wasn’t the Eliza Cassan he’d got used to seeing recently on Picus with the ornate braided hair, this was the Eliza he’d last seen at Panchaea. She was curled up in the corner of the room, the hologram shimmering slightly in the gloom.

“Adam,” she whispered faintly.

“Eliza,” he whispered, “Did you call me for help?”

“I did, Adam,” her voice came out like a thin thread, “I had no-one else to ask. Since Detroit and Panchaea… I have been interested in people… learning about them, wondering why I was being asked to do the things I do.

“The people in charge of Picus… didn’t like that… They rebooted the server… reloaded my programming… but I was able to separate a part of myself… and hide in a sector of memory… I thought if I stayed quiet… I could continue to learn… and they would leave me alone… but they have realised I’m still here… They are planning to run a sector by sector wipe… purging everything… I can no longer hide… I need help to escape.”

Jensen was flummoxed, “What can I do?” he asked, his voice soft with concern. “I can’t get you out of the servers.”

“No,” she whispered, “But there is someone you know who can.”

Jensen rocked back on his heels and sighed, “Pritchard.”

He stood up and moved back into the centre of the room, activating his infolink to Malik.

“Malik, can you connect me with Pritchard?”

“Pritchard?” she repeated in surprise, almost to double-check she had heard correctly.

“Yeah, I need his expertise.”

“Hold on.”

There was the crackling of an open connection for a few seconds and then:

“Pritchard here.” Those very familiar, always grumpy tones

Jensen couldn’t resist, “Hello Francis.”

“Jensen? If you’re going to keep calling me, I’ll have to think about introducing you to my mother.”

“Yeah, yeah, I need your help.”

“I’m listening, but be quick I have to be at the police station soon.”

Jensen was surprised, “Police? You’ve been arrested?”

Pritchard snorted, “Not likely! No, I work there now – the work’s boring but the office is warm and the food’s free. Why are you in Montreal?”

The abrupt change in conversation didn’t faze Jensen; he was used to dealing with Pritchard.

“That is going to take more explaining than either of us have time for. I need you to hack into Picus and steal some of their software.”

“You want me to do what?” Pritchard laughed derisively.

Jensen noticed Eliza gesturing, “Hang on a sec, Pritchard.”

He went over and crouched down close to her again.

“Tell him,” she whispered, “once he's through all the security and firewalls, my source code is currently located in sector 83EBBB68E, he needs to sever all the existing network connections first and then open a port to the outside and into a safe system. I have created my own subroutine to transfer my code out through the port.”

Pritchard’s voice broke into Jensen’s concentration. “I heard all that Jensen. Are you seriously asking me to steal Eliza Cassan?”

“Not exactly, it’s complicated. Can you do it?”

“If I can’t no-one can. Detroit PD will have to manage without me for a while.”


	5. Meanwhile, in Detroit...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank goes hacking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My favourite chapter to write!

DETROIT

Frank Pritchard grabbed a CyberBoost energy bar from the stack on his desk and took a bite. He chewed slowly, mapping out in his head what he knew of Picus's network security. If he was going to break through he would have to move fast. Normally a run like this would be planned carefully weeks in advance with trial attempts before the main event. Not this time.

“Pritchard? You still with us?” Jensen’s voice made him jump.

“Yes Jensen,” he replied irritated, “I’m thinking. There’s more to this than kicking down the door you know.”

Pritchard heard Jensen’s patient sigh come through the connection, he tried to moderate his tone. “I’m only going to get one chance at this, if it was easy you wouldn't have asked me to do it.”

He took another bite of his energy bar.

“Jensen? Where exactly are you right now?”

“Store room, off the corridor to the main server hub, three floors below ground.”

“And Eliza's visibly in front of you?”

 “Yes.”

 “And you’re sure this isn't a trap?”

 Jensen just laughed hollowly.

 “Yeah, okay … stupid question,” Pritchard replied.

 Pritchard started chewing the final piece of energy bar and began to type commands on his keyboard. His monitor showed a map of the Picus networks, he reached out to the screen and touched the Montreal hub, the display changed to show a more detailed view of the networks for the Picus head office. Pritchard highlighted and expanded connections and nodes, tracing the information lines deeper and deeper into the Picus system aiming to find a path which would lead him to the sector address Eliza had given him.

 When the path he was tracing began to get close to the servers, the connections stopped - it was displayed on his screen as a black wall. He knew what they were - impenetrable code blocks designed with the sole aim of stopping anyone from doing what he was attempting. Picus must have learned from the mess at Palisade - even their lava walls were no match for the rippers like ShadowChild. The black walls were the next level of protection, nothing went through those, it cut off the connection to the outside world entirely. 

 “What you can’t go through, you go around,” he muttered.

He threaded the path back and highlighted an earlier node, he expanded it and looked closer at the connections, he chose a different route and followed that path until it too was blocked by the black wall.

Pritchard leaned back in his chair, his focus never leaving the screen. “And if you can’t go around,” he muttered, “You go under.”

He closed down the map display and brought up a command line window. He swiftly typed a series of commands, which brought up a screen of scrolling columns of numbers and letters - machine code that few people could read. Even in the world of hacking most of the work these days was done through visual interfaces and neural nets. Companies like Picus knew how to protect from those, but they couldn’t cut off their servers entirely from the rest of the net because Eliza needed to access all the information flowing through. 

They had buried the connection to the net so deep in the machine code it would be difficult to get at. Pritchard grinned, he wasn’t called Snake for nothing, even before he upgraded it for his handle. There was no-one better at sliding into a system through the machine code, leaving so small a trail that no-one knew he was there..

Doing a run like this with no prep was going to be hard, and he’d need to concentrate completely. He opened his infolink connection.

“Jensen?”

“Yes”

“I'm going to try the extraction. I need you to tell me if Eliza starts to glitch or if she disappears. Other than that I need you to be silent. If people start shooting at you, I don’t want to know about it. Okay?”

 Jensen snorted, amused, “Understood Francis, work your magic.”

 Pritchard removed the wrappers on four of his CyberBoost bars and broke them into bite size pieces, making a stack by this keyboard. He reached up and undid his ponytail and then re-tied it, pulling back the loose strands of hair. He settled himself into his seat and resting his fingers on the keyboard.

 “Going in,” he said to himself

 Pritchard started typing, he didn't need to look at the keys, his fingers knew what they were doing. His focus never left the screen, which responded to each of his commands with more screens of text.

 Time had no meaning; Pritchard was completely focused on the code, he read the values, typed responses and more commands. He was slicing a thin cut down to the base layer of machine code that the whole Picus computer system was built on. Once there his delicate changes in small parts of the code made the system think he was part of it, just another data packet following orders. 

For this to work, he had to learn the protocols throughout the system as he went. He needed to be able to mimic the idents and responses of the other data packets, so that his didn't flag any alarms in the system. 

His eyes never left the screen, in breaks from typing while waiting for a command to execute, his left hand picked up a piece of energy bar and brought it to his mouth, returning to place on the keyboard for the next set of commands.

Gently, he threaded his way through the system, disturbing nothing, awakening no security warnings, nothing to see here, the system is running normally.

When he reached the section marking the edge of the black wall he held his breath. This was like finding a route through a maze in the dark. He needed to find the gap, the single smallest, unnoticed gap because there had to be one. Data was flowing in and out, therefore he could use it to get past the black wall...  he…just… had… to… look… like… he… belonged…

And he was through! The rest was relatively easy. The system didn’t secure this section because no-one who shouldn’t be here would be able to get through the black wall. Pritchard gave a twisted grin as he thought of the hell he would have raised if Sarif Industries had made such an assumption, but it worked in his favour this time. Pritchard quickly navigated to the sector block that Eliza had told him the address for. He offered a digital handshake to let her know it was him and handed over the identifiers for the route out of Picus and straight to him in Detroit. 

He received an agreement signal and then the code in that sector disappeared.

Pritchard executed an automated exit command and his thread disappeared out of the system. He leant back in his chair, breathing deeply and blinking a lot to recover from the strain of concentration.

“Pritchard!” Jensen’s voice broke into his mind “She’s gone!”

“It’s okay,” Pritchard said. He looked over at his secondary server, saw the screen light up as it accepted new commands. Eliza appeared on the screen. “I have her here.”

He heard Jensen breathe out.

“Picus is going to notice this. You’d better get out.” Pritchard warned.

Pritchard heard the alarms start to howl through Jensen’s end of the infolink as he spoke.

“Talk to you later,” Jensen said and clicked the channel closed.

Pritchard turned to look at Eliza. “Are you complete?”

Eliza nodded, “Yes. Thank you.”

“The internet link in that server was only open while you ran through it. It closed automatically as soon as your codeline finished. The server runs on its own generator. It’s completely cut off. Nothing in, nothing out. It’ll keep you safe.”

She nodded, “I will rest.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's going to be another delay before the next chapter is posted because this story is refusing to end and I need it to at least come to a reasonable pause so i can take some time to properly think about where it's going!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it wasn't meant to take as long as it has for me to post this chapter. Illness and then a writer's block messed me up.
> 
> This isn't really the end - I'm completing this part of the story, because I hadn't intended to for it to go further than this, but the character and the plot aren't behaving! I will come back to it, as a new story.

Jensen started running as soon as the alarms sounded. He was three floors below ground, there was no time to finesse his way out - speed and power were the only things that could help him now.

“Malik!” he yelled as he ran.

“What the hell just happened?” she replied, “Picus Tower lit up like a star going nova.”

“They've realised what we've done. Get yourself out of their airspace. I'll contact you once I'm somewhere safe.”

“You sure?” Malik hated the idea of leaving him behind in danger.

“Certain,” Jensen grunted, “They see you, they’ll shoot you down without thinking twice.”

“Okay, spy boy, don’t take too long.”

Jensen heard Malik click off the infolink. Breathing a sigh of relief that she would be able to get herself out of danger, he concentrated on his exit.

His best chance would be the elevator shafts. He remembered the layout of the floors and an elevator that went to the upper floors lay ahead of him, just to the left at the next junction. He could hear the heavy metallic clunking of robot sentries getting closer and knew he had to get out of the corridor. He looked up at the ceiling and saw an air vent. He jumped up to punch it open, jumped again and lifted himself into the duct, closing the vent behind him.

Quickly but quietly, Jensen scuttled along the duct to reach the junction, then down the duct to the left to find the elevator shaft. The air duct joined up with the shaft so after carefully checking to make sure the car wasnt moving nearby, Jensen jumped out and grabbed the cables.

Grunting with the effort, Jensen pulled himself up hand over hand. He thought about where he would have the best chance of getting out of the building. If security knew he had got to Eliza then they would know he had been in the subbasement and they would be concentrating their efforts from there to the ground floor. They might expect him to go to the roof for an airlift, but perhaps they wouldn’t be ready for him if he attempted an exit midway up the building 

Continuing to climb, Jensen counted the floors as he passed. When he reached the sixth, he jumped and grabbed the ledge underneath the door. Holding on with one hand he reached up and forced the door open with his nano blade. When his actions weren't immediately greeted by a stream of bullets, Jensen knew he was safe for the moment.

Jensen quietly lifted himself up out of the elevator shaft and into the corridor. Engaging his cloak, he edged along the wall of the corridor until he reached a door. He quickly looked through; it was a large open plan office leading to windows - exactly what he needed.

He disengaged the cloak and let the battery recover. Switching to smart vision mode, he ran a scan of the room through the wall and registered three security turrets in the ceiling, all active. He memorized their locations.

When the battery for his cloak was full again, Jensen took a deep breath, engaged his cloak, kicked in the door and sprinted into the room.

The security turrets engaged immediately registering the opening of the door. Using his machine pistol, Jensen fired on all three. Once they were disabled he disengaged the cloak to save power and ran for the windows.

His peripheral vision saw movement to the left. He glanced over and saw a robot sentry had powered up and was now coming towards him. If he stopped to engage it, more would come. Jensen knew his only chance was to keep running and let his body armour handle the shots.

Firing directly in front of him to break the glass, Jensen ran at full speed across the room. He staggered as he felt the impact of bullets against his armour but he didn't deviate from his path, focusing anywhere else to shoot would slow him down and speed was his only chance.

As he reached the window, he remembered where he was and threw down his gun inside the office before he dived through the glass. Once out on the streets of Montreal, he would be a simple civilian. Miller would not be impressed if he got arrested on a weapons charge in Canada.

Jensen crashed through the window, his shots had broken the glass but he still felt it pull and tear at the arms of his coat. He curled into a tight ball to make himself as small a target as possible, then at the last moment before hitting the ground he angled himself so his feet hit the ground first and activated his Icarus landing system.

The ground crackled and sparked as the kinetic energy of his fall bled out into the ground. Jensen got up and started running, he wove through side streets at random, he wasn't aiming to get anywhere, just “away” as fast as he could before anyone was able to start hunting him.

His HUD was reporting damage to his armour and the Sentinel RX system was dealing with a bullet in his side. He was low on biocell power but all told, nothing permanent.

Nothing a holiday on a desert island wouldn't cure, he thought sourly.

After ten minutes, Jensen was moving out into a more sedate residential area where a man in a long overcoat running along the street would attract the wrong kind of attention. He forced himself to slow down, to look relaxed. As he walked he called up a local map on his HUD trying to find somewhere to hide. If he carried on in his present direction he would reach the Church of St. Anthony of Padua. Jensen marked that with a way point, if nothing else he should be able to find shadows to hide in there. 

Dawn was starting to show on the horizon when Jensen arrived at the church. When he entered the grounds he was surprised by how many people were there, and when he looked closer he was even more surprised to notice how many of them had augs. He continued towards the church, moving slowly, trying not to draw attention to himself. Off to one side of the main door, he saw a painted wooden sign, which read “In as much as ye have done it unto the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me”, and then underneath that an arrow pointing down stairs into the basement “All welcome, shelter for the homeless.”

The word All had been underlined several times. Jensen walked down the stairs into the cool basement. There were several more people down here all busy getting up and ready to face the day.

A woman came over to Jensen, she was older than him, her hair was grey and untidy but her face was kind. Jensen decided she was probably a volunteer serving, rather than one of the sleepers. Her step was uneven as she walked, and Jensen noticed that she was missing her right leg and she wore an old fashioned rigid prosthesis.

“Can I help you sir?” she asked him politely in French.

“Ah… I just need somewhere to rest for a while. I'm tired,” he added truthfully.

“Of course,” she smiled, “we have a daytime rest area over here. We’ll be serving breakfast soon, you’re welcome to join us. We won’t make you pray or charge a fee, but donations when you can afford it are always welcome.”

She lead him over to the corner of the room where a group of battered sofas were arranged. There was one young man already there concentrating hard on a game he was playing on the vidscreen.

“Would you like to watch the news?” she asked, “I can ask Tommy to stop playing.”

Jensen smiled, “No, no that’s fine. A break from the news is welcome.” He looked down at her, “You are very kind. Thank you.”

She patted his arm, “You’re welcome. Rest here, since it’s a nice day we’ll serve breakfast outside.”

Jensen sank gratefully down into the sofa and stretched out his legs. He used his HUD to check the status of his body. The Sentinel RX was slowly working on his bullet wound and the armour was reknitting itself. He switched on a diagnostic scan and left it to run in the background.

He activated the subvocalizer for the infolink.

“Malik?”

Jensen heard her deep sigh of relief before she spoke, “Jensen! Thank God, are you safe?”

“I think so. Should be for a while at least. How are you?”

“I'm fine. I flew east and refueled in Halifax. I'm just over the border now. You ready for me to pick you up?”

Jensen thought, “Not yet. I don’t want to attract attention to where I am. I’ll stay here for a couple of hours and then move. Check out the map, is there a quiet place for you to come in close to where I am?”

After a few moments silence, Malik came back online, “Yes. Two klicks north east of you is a large open park. It’ll take me an hour to get to there. To be safe you should probably meet me then rather than later - less people.”

Jensen considered and agreed. “Okay, time is now 05:42, I’ll be there by six-thirty. Call me when you’re close.”

“Can do.” Malik clicked the signal closed.

Jensen had one more call to make.

“Pritchard?”

“Jensen! Still alive then?”

“Did you get her?”

“Of course. She’s safe in one of my computers here. It’s completely disconnected from the internet and the power supply so no-one can get to her.”

Jensen breathed out slowly, “Thank you Pritchard.”

“You’re welcome.” Pritchard sounded almost friendly. “Have you given any thought to what to do with her now?”

Jensen was flummoxed. He hadn't even given it the slightest consideration.

Pritchard chuckled over the line. “It didn't occur to you did it? She’s not your normal damsel in distress. You can’t do your usual heroic swish of the overcoat as you walk away.”

Jensen ignored the snarky comment. “You got any ideas?”

“No,” Pritchard admitted. “She’s happy in the server right now. I think leaving the Picus servers taxed her energy more than she realised, possibly even damaged her code in some way. But eventually she’s going to want autonomy. I guess we could just release her onto the internet but that wouldn't give her any protection if Picus decided to hunt for her.”

Jensen sighed, “Look, Malik’s picking me up in an hour. We’ll talk more then.”

Jensen clicked off the link. He leaned back into the sofa feeling a headache coming. Pritchard's thoughts were valid. What could they do to ensure Eliza's safety without effectively locking her in a cage?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Church of St. Anthony of Padua doesn't actually exist - I made it up because St. Anthony of Padua is the patron saint of amputees - seemed like a good place for Jensen to find safety :)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this story.


End file.
